Drop ship from Amazon
Summary: mrfixmore discusses concerns about unknowingly purchasing drop-shipped items from Amazon while shopping on eBay. eburtonlab suggests identifying certain seller characteristics to avoid drop shippers, such as low feedback and odd item selection. 12345jamesstamps and wildthingsgames recommend checking seller information and asking questions before purchasing, noting eBay's policies on drop shipping. mudshark61369 explains the use of Amazon's fulfillment services by eBay sellers and mentions that using Amazon membership for fulfillment is not allowed. marjiewatson shares dissatisfaction with both Amazon and eBay for similar reasons.
Over the last few months, I've purchased a couple of items that were drop shipped from Amazon. I understand how it works: the cost on amazon was a little less than on ebay and with free shipping, the seller pocketed a few bucks...
However, the reason I'm using ebay is to not use amazon. Is there any way I can reliably tell from the descriptions that the item is a drop ship?
marjiewatson
·Sep 15, 2026 at 1:35 PMI could find no tracking information other than that it was shipped UPS. The big blue van that pulled up was definitely not UPS. I don’t like BS, and I give up trying to support “the little guy” on eBay. Another thing … I appreciate the responses given below, but I have noticed the same responses word for word on other threads.
marjiewatson
·Sep 14, 2026 at 9:18 PMI’m with you. I no longer use Amazon, and for this same reason I will no longer use eBay. Very shady.
mudshark61369
·1 month ago@mrfixmore ,
Many ebay sellers sell on Amazon as well as eBay and others store their item with Amazon and let them do the pulling, packing and shipping. They have access to one or both of Amazon's fulfillment seFrvices Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA) or Multi Channel Fulfillment (MCF). Both services are accepted to be used by ebay sellers. What is not allowed is an Amazon member listing an item on ebay, then after being paid buying it with their Prime account, usually those items come with A Gift For You receipt. However, one of the services I believe FBA gives the seller the option to send gift receipts instead of a standard receipt. There's more info about the services in the link below.
https://supplychain.amazon.com/blog/difference-between-multichannel-fulfillment-and-fulfillment-by-amazon?utm_medium=direct
wildthingsgames
·1 month agoBest way is just to ask prior to purchase. (do be aware, many sellers expect you to then ask for a discount and may update their pricing to current market, accordingly)
Also, eBay does not allow drop shipping for buyers, so not sure the policy on sellers. Feel free to report them, just in case, when it's clear they have used a drop ship service. (at least eBay will know you were not happy about it to gauge future policy)
As for Amazon. I have done a lot of soul searching in the past year. Amazon can be a necessary evil for many people in "shopping deserts" where they simply have no alternative than to shop at Walmart and Amazon.
Best practice is to simply accept that occasionally there is no other option for some. Be happy that a human being is at least making some money off of Amazon's monopoly tactics. Good on them.
12345jamesstamps
·1 month agoThe seller might have items for sale where the addresses of the items they are shipped from are from different locations..sometimes.
eBay seller ID in feedbacks...check to see it statesUSA and check other buyers what they say about seller...sometimes that helps.
Does the location of seller match where it is being shipped from...usually the city and state matches where it is shipped from...sometimes, not always.
Sometimes we can't tell of course if it is from Amazon that is drop shipping.
eburtonlab
·1 month ago@mrfixmore
It may not be possible to always identify in advance those sellers who drop-ship, but it is possible to identify some common characteristics of illicit retail drop-shippers or other under-performing sellers, and thus avoid the worst of them.
Often they can be spotted by a combination of low feedback number, free shipping of heavy items where it would not be profitable to use retail shipping, use of stock photos, high handling time (not necessarily if they are using Amazon or Walmart, though), poor feedback received with complaints of delays and wrong items or out of stock cancellations, very odd item selection and/or quantities like items were chosen at random from a catalog, canned item descriptions scraped from another site that exactly match many other similar listings, differences between registration location on the feedback page and item location (or vague item location -- like "US, United States"), or inability to answer even basic questions about the items being sold.